Grottasöngr

Gróttasǫngr had social and political impact in Sweden during the 20th century as it was modernized in the form of Den nya Grottesången by Viktor Rydberg, which described conditions in factories using the mill of Grottasǫngr as a literary backdrop.

[2] Gróttasǫngr is the work song of two young slave girls bought in Sweden by the Danish King Frodi (cf.

The girls recount their past deeds, including moving a flat-topped mountain and revealing that they had actually created the grinding stone they are now chained to.

The girls then reflect that they have now become cold and dirty slaves, relentlessly worked, and living a life of dull grinding.

With the impending army soon to arrive, one of the girls finishes the song with: Frodi, we have ground to the point where we must stop, now the ladies have had a full stint of milling!

[3] Snorri relates in the Prose Edda that Skjöldr ruled the country that we today call Denmark.

In Denmark, there was a pair of magical mill stones; the man who ground with them could ask them to produce anything he wished.

Modified forms of the tale are found as stories such as Why the Sea Is Salt, collected by Peter Christen Asbjørnsen and Jørgen Moe in their Norske Folkeeventyr.

In Orcadian and Shetlandic folklore, the gýgjar are renamed 'Grotti Finnie' and 'Grotti Minnie' who are two witches that create a whirlpool in the Pentland Firth, named the Swelkie.

[5] Viktor Rydberg's apprehension of unregulated capitalism at the dawn of the industrial age is most fully expressed in his acclaimed poem Den nya Grottesången (The New Grotti Song) in which he delivered a fierce attack on the miserable working conditions in factories of the era, using the mill of Grottasöngr as his literary backdrop.

[8] The Raven Tower by Ann Leckie also draws inspiration from the Grottasǫngr in the character of the Strength and Patience of the Hill.